If you upload data about offline conversions infrequently, such as once a day, or even less often, you introduce ambiguity into your data: does the lack of information indicate that no conversions have occurred or that you haven’t uploaded the data yet?
The ambiguity can cause bid strategies that target offline conversions to be less efficient than they otherwise would be. (Bid strategies evaluate bidding four times a day.) Other Search Ads 360 features might also be affected by ambiguity in conversion data.
To remove this ambiguity:
- A Search Ads 360 user needs to sign in to the Search Ads 360 UI and change the settings for the Floodlight activities that you use to report offline conversions. See the Search Ads 360 help center for instructions.
- Periodically call the
Conversion.updateAvailability()method for each offline Floodlight activity. This method specifies the last date and time that data is available for the Floodlight activity. Note that to call this method, you need to post tohttps://www.googleapis.com/doubleclicksearch/v2/conversion/updateAvailability, as shown in the example below.
How often should I call Conversion.updateAvailability()?
We recommend that you implement a heartbeat that contacts Search Ads 360 on a regular interval and either uploads new conversions or calls Conversion.updateAvailability() to indicate that no conversions have occurred. See Best practices for adding conversions.
Send a Conversion.updateAvailability() request
The following example request indicates that all conversions for a Floodlight activity named “Call center” and with an ID of “25700000001464142” have been uploaded as of 1378790000000. Note that the timestamp is in epoch millis UTC.
POST https://www.googleapis.com/doubleclicksearch/v2/conversion/updateAvailability
Authorization: Bearer your OAuth 2.0 access token
Content-type: application/json
{
"availabilities": [
{
"agencyId": "12300000000000456", // Replace with your ID
"advertiserId": "45600000000010291", // Replace with your ID
"segmentationType": "FLOODLIGHT",
"segmentationId": "25700000001464142", // Replace with your ID
"segmentationName": "Test",
"availabilityTimestamp": "1389348800000"
}
]
}
Handle Search Ads 360 responses
If the upload is successful, Search Ads 360 returns the same JSON object:
{
"availabilities": [
{
"agencyId": "12300000000000456",
"advertiserId": "45600000000010291",
"segmentationType": "FLOODLIGHT",
"segmentationId": "25700000001464142",
"segmentationName": "Test",
"availabilityTimestamp": "1389348800000"
}
]
}
If the request fails to validate or upload, the response includes failure messages. For more information about these failure messages, see Handle Search Ads 360 responses for insert requests.